On conspiracy theories

Wide-ranging conspiracies do take place, whether you or I, or Charlie Brooker, are inclined to believe it or not.

So says Dan Hind in the Guardian responding to Brooker, who said 9/11 conspiracy theories are a bunch of paranoid hogtwaddle. So, maybe the Illuminati aren’t working with the Bilderbergers to control the world heroin market with the Queen of England.

But smaller, more plausible conspiracies certainly do exist, like, oh, a cabal in the White House pumping out lies and misinformation to allow them to invade Iraq. That kind of thing.

Then again, what is history but an ever-changing tale of conspiracies?

So it is hardly surprising that people – intelligent, level-headed people – are willing to believe that sophisticated conspiracies exist and that they are sometimes extremely important drivers of events. Given that they demonstrably do exist.

2 thoughts on “On conspiracy theories”

For years there was a “conspiracy theory” that Churchill and FDR knew in advance about the bombing at Pearl Harbor. A few years ago when the private papers of both were released, what do you know… they did know in advance, and took action to save the hard to rebuild ships, letting the rest take the hit so the US would have a reason to get into the war.

Sometimes theories are correct, but hard or impossible to prove. Gravity, for example, is still a theory and not a law, since theres not a proof for how and why it happens. Do you think gravity is a myth because it’s only a theory?